Wednesday 1 May 2013

First things first...

Well it's time for the lost fimir to introduce himself and explain what this blog is all about. My name is John and I've been playing a variety of different geeky games for the majority of my life . I have fond recollections of my young childhood playing heroquest; this was the first time I encountered the fimir and also the first step towards developing my fondness for dwarves. My current warhammer army is affectionately known as 'The Hold of the Ebon Hand' after its Dwarven Lord who himself was initially a character in a dungeons and dragons game.

This is Ovak Werrik - The Ebon Handed Dwarf, in his gleaming golden bronze armour. Alongside him is Ortwin Thyssen, his Rune Lord, and Daven, his loyal battle standard bearer. This isn't a great photo to be honest as Ovak isn't finished, but it gives you an idea at least. His hand is black from where evil magic seeped into him from a cursed hand axe, luckily he was saved by a holy bracer that constantly pumps holy water into the affected hand!





Anyway, on with the main purpose of this blog.
I was thinking about a second army for warhammer and fancied something to contrast with the dwarves, so a strong magic base and minimal shooting were required. I came across a fan-made army book that really caught my interest - obviously it was the fimir, otherwise there wouldn't be much point in this blog! The army book is fantastically written, collating huge amounts of back story to this forgotten race from all manner of sources. Take a look for yourself, maybe you'll get a few ideas!






The fimir were a race for warhammer that were dreamt up as something completely new and different from the familiar fantasy races, yet they were based on Celtic origins - a period of history and culture that is sorely lacking representation in gaming worlds. I remembered how much fun and frankly brutal they were in hero quest so I started reading the history to them. The whole idea of a forgotten race, lost in the mists of time, that is always on the verge of extinction and literally battling to survive sounded really rather cool. Then add in the bizarre story that the fimir females are unable to reproduce so the males go out in raiding parties to steal women and rape them just to ensure their race can keep living. My friends think it's very funny but slightly disturbing that I'm drawn to this race - especially as I featured rape fairly heavily in the d&d game I run! My excuse was that I needed something absolutely horrific to convey just how brutal the big boss baddie really was!

So I started thinking about how I could model a fimir army. I know that games workshop released some models many many years ago when they still supported the race. You can still get hold of some of these models on eBay, but they tend to be rather pricey! I also spotted that forge world released some fimir warriors that are quite simply stunning! However these are monstrous creature sized so can represent the largest of the types of fimir, but what about the shear and fimm warriors?


Then I stumbled across someone else's blog - the wonderful work of Mr Saturday, take a look! The way that he has brought the fimir to life using the savage orc kit is amazing. Clearly he is annoyingly talented. Then this got me thinking about converting my own fimir. The savage orcs clearly make a great base model, but (and I realise that I'm being massively picky here) they have too many fingers and toes. This led to the idea of using the lizardmen range from games workshop - three fingers and a thumb is exactly what I'm looking for, but they'd definitely need some work on to get the complete fimir look.
Hence this blog is born. I invite you all to follow my progress and hopeful success at converting and developing my army - rediscovering the lost fimir.

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